Friday Fill-ins #187

1. I'm going to do it my way and everyone else will just have to live with that.

2. Please dont ask me to do anything implying adventure and daring because I'm either too cautious, or just plain scared.

3. Perhaps today you can make it a point to buy me chocolate more often,

4. ....because I'm almost positive that would awaken my true adventurer’s spirit.

5. Compassion is more common than I thought.

6. My friends have been around for me, no questions asked, no matter how difficult it has been some days.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a rare Friday night home alone, tomorrow my plans include visiting the church where I was married 24 years ago and Sunday, I want to have a great big breakfast cooked by someone else!

Thoughts on a book: The Scarpetta Factor

I like Patricia Corwell's writing because the plot is always a puzzle and sometimes you have the first pieces so early you dont recognise them for what they are......  Why note a homeless man?  Why does a rival give you a hug?

This book continues the backstory that has been an undercurrent over the past six or seven of these crime novels which follow the career of Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner, her niece Lucy and husband Benton Wesley, formerly of the FBI.  The writing is fast paced and hard to put down, not the least because there's always a lot to keep in mind.

The story begins with the body of Toni Darien in the Manhatten morgue and Scarpetta's care to make sense of anomalies the body presents.  Nearby her husband Benton, working at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, is beginning to worry about a handmade Christmas card addressed to him, and with a sinister song recorded on its tiny circuit. Scarpetta's niece Lucy is snowbound in Vermont, trying to salvage something from a weekend with her partner and simultaneously searching the internet for clues to the mystery her aunt faces on the autopsy table.  Before long there are threads to follow and tangles to unwind, and Benton realises almost too late that everything is part of something very much bigger and more frightening than anyone but the FBI will believe.

As I read, it occured to me that here was the echo I had felt when I first read the Millenium books....  Lucy Farinelli calls to mind Lisbeth Salander.  Each is a computer whiz-kid, talking in codes that only other similarly minded people can follow, only too aware of how much information is stored and how each store can be opened, accessed and manipulated from afar.  Each is basically a solitary person although Lucy is more socially presentable in her own skin than Lisbeth who communicates best when disguised by dress or the anonymity of a chat room.  Each wears leathers and determinedly androgenous clothes on their slight figures.

It was only when I got to the end of this book that I remembered one of the things that had charmed me when I began to read Scarpetta stories, years ago.....  the cooking.  Pasta, rich aromatic sauces, shopping for ingredients to fill the house with memories of family and friends and times shared; a glass of wine to drink while lovingly preparing the simplest and tastiest of midnight snacks.

I do like a book with lots of different aspects to it!

The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell, Griffin Press 2009 (ISBN 978-0-316-73317-5)

Paris in July - 8

Wanted to share the talents of my friend Liz who has not long returned from Europe.  This is her evocative and beautifully coloured photograph of a Paris morning through her hotel window.

What I love most about this challenge is reading everyone's memories and reviews and recipes.  Plus it made me notice french things everywhere, from my placemats in the kitchen and the perpetual calendar on the wall, to the food and furnishings in my local shops. 

What shall we do once July is over?

Thoughts on a book: The Believers

I sometimes wonder what motivates me to pick up a book, or a collection of books.  Is there something subliminal that guides my hand, or am I simply having a "like that cover" day?  

Last week I picked up a copy of The Believers by Zoe Heller.  The blurb lead me to think it would be a good book to read that I wouldn't have to struggle through like the last one (The Yiddish Policemen's Union, mused upon earlier this month), determined as I had been to finish it, despite not being sure I was enjoying the ride.

The Litvinoff family, yes its another book with Jewish themes, are the characters.  Parents Joel and Audrey dominate the lives of their three children: adopted Lenny, doormat Karla, and about to be born-again Jew Rosa.  After a brief opening which paints Joel and Audrey in their familiar mariage, and describes their relationships with the three adult children, the remainder of the book deals with the aftermath of Joel's stroke.  There are no medical elements to overwhelm the reader, instead the details are of the life the family thought they knew, and what had in fact been happening instead.

I found parallels with Audrey's observation of her new life while Joel lingered in hospital

"By day she sat at Joel's bedside, in a narcaleptic stupor: by night she rattled around the Perry Street house, a lone pea in an oversized pod.  Her domestic life, which for forty years had been framed by Joel's clamorous, demanding presence, had become a shambolic, unpunctuated affair....it was simply that without Joel she didn't have the gumption, the discipline, to call a halt to the day by herself."

...and that odd feeling that comes later when life keeps on going

"A few nights ago, Jean persuaded Audrey to accompany her to an anti-war meeting in Chelsea.  Audrey needed to get out in the world and recharge her batteries, she said....It had seemed a reasonable enough idea at the time.  But the outing had proved to be a terrible mistake.  Ausdrey was not ready to put her personal calamity in the perspective that social life required.  It did not reassure her to know that life in the great world was going on as before: it offended her."

Oh I know that feeling, but the rest of the story belong entirely to the Litvinoffs.  The women were overshadowed by the life their parents led and undermined in the lives they created for themselves.  They seemed to be unplanned by-products of a thisty sexlife and just had to be endured and bullied into adults.  Nothing either woman does meets with parental approval, only in the last pages does Audrey show any empathy for Karla and she isn't even around to hear it.  Their adopted brother, addicted to heroin and whatever else he can persuade his doting mother to pay for, seems to have slipped through life without boundaries and at thirty-four is still only a sketchy man.

It might not sound like a great story, but its a good read and I did indeed stay in bed this morning til I finished it, BECAUSE I wanted to finish it.  I may even keep the book, a positive affirmation in a house with many bookshelves and all of them full.

The Believers - Zoe Heller, Fig Tree (Penguin) 2008

Paris in July - 7 "Cat's Tongues"

 After leaving a comment on Tamara's blog about celebrating Bastille Day at school with chocolate Langues de Chat, I thought I'd try and find out why they were such a tradition for our french mistress.  For those who didn't read my comment, Mademoiselle shared them with us every year, but I dont remember ever being told why anyone would want to make a cats tongue from chocolate........  definitely weird.

Haven't found anything yet, but along the way I discovered that the Japanese make them (here's the link) and so do the Germans (as you can see here), but the only french cats tongues I have found to date are biscuits.  And while searching, as you do, I came across this blog which might be fun to read too.....combining a few of my favourite things in one place.

So maybe this tradition that I thought I had discovered at school was in fact my french teacher's own little chocolate obsession, disguised as a teaching tool.

Paris in July - 6

I have a secondhand bookshop that is my first call every Saturday morning.  This week I was idly browsing while the rest of the family bought and sold, and I found a gem to add to the cat book collection AND share for this challenge.  Look for more information about "Paris in July" here.

ZAT CAT ! by Chelsey McLaren  Its a tail (!) of a cat who falls on his feet, as all cats do, and creates havoc at 'Le "wild & glamorous" de Paree! C'est l'ouvre Spectaculaire du Grand Couturier Monsieur Pierre.'  I'd love to be able to reproduce more of the text but permission from the publisher might take too long for this challenge.  The font is handlettered by the author, and the illustrations - whimsical pen and pencil sketches, deceptively simple and stylised - are a delight.  If you ever smiled at the amount of information conveyed by a few lines in a Ronald Searle sketch for a St Trinians story, you'll love these.  I especially like the translations of occasional french phrases... they appear like footnotes at the bottom of each page, accompanied by a little sketch of the Eiffel Tower.  Not that you'd need them because the simplicity of the text makes it very clear what is meant, even if you dont have a word of french at all.

Published in 2003 by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc.  NY

Friday Fill-ins 186

1. I feel certain that this weekend will be full of good things.

2. ...but I might have to give up sleeping to catch up on all the things I need to do.

3. Do not stand in my way tomorrow.

4. The best thing about every day is that each one is completely unique.

5. It's hard to know how much more to do before bed.

6. I think I'll just start at the beginning and hope that everone else follows suit.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter, tomorrow my plans include having dinner with friends I haven't seen in ages and Sunday, I want to lie in bed til lunchtime and finish my book!